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August 9, 2012
Article by Kurt Kleiner, U of T News
University of Toronto Scarborough will create six new academic departments and revamp its curriculum under a new academic plan approved earlier this month after an eighteen month consultative process.
The plan will adapt course offerings in response to evolving student demands, at the same time it builds the capacity to serve a projected increase in undergraduate student enrolment. A major goal of the new plan is to keep UTSC in the forefront of cutting edge pedagogy and scholarship, says Rick Halpern, UTSC dean and vice-principal.
“We’re exploring new areas of scholarship that will make a University of Toronto Scarborough degree even more exciting,” Halpern says. “UTSC is operating on the frontiers of scholarship.”
The new academic plan is in line with the strategic planning process begun by UTSC Principal Franco Vaccarino in 2008. That plan laid out a number of strategies for dealing with the major expansion UTSC is undergoing at a time when technological innovation, commercialization and globalization are changing the economy and society and placing new demands on universities.
One of the more visible products of the plan is the creation of six new academic departments. The Department of Humanities and the Department of Social Sciences will sub-divide into the departments of Arts, Culture & Media; Anthropology; Human Geography; Historical & Cultural Studies; Political Science; and Sociology.